Note by Y.M.Sverdlov

There is a telegram about my proposal to make Petrovsky chairman of the Ukr[ainian] Central Committee. The Central Committee of Ukraine agrees. An immediate decision is necessary. I simultaneously nominate Dzerzh[inskii] in place of Petrovskii in order that in the near future we subordinate the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission to the Comvnudelam2.

Sverdlov.

Note by V.I. Lenin

I agree. (I am only afraid whether Petrovsky is not weak in the "struggle" with the left c[osialists]-r[evolutionaries] and others).

Record of voting by members of the Central Committee of the RCP(b)

Agreed.

Trotsky.

Agreed.

Stalin.

I agree to let Petrovsky go, I do not agree to the appointment of Dzerzhinsky.

N. Krestinsky.

Fund 2, op. 1, d. 8839 - autographs.

1The document is conditionally dated March 8, 1919. On this day Ya.M.Sverdlov and V.I.Lenin had their last business meeting. They both participated in the work of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR, at the meeting of which they exchanged notes. Sverdlov went to Petrograd on February 23, and on February 27 to Kharkov for the III Congress of the Communist Party of Ukraine, returned to Moscow on March 8. While in Kharkov, Sverdlov sent a telegram to Moscow with a proposal to elect G.I.Petrovsky as chairman of the All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee (see Sverdlov's note). At the III Congress of Soviets of Ukraine (March 6-10), Petrovsky was elected. From March 9 Sverdlov was seriously ill and died on March 16, 1919.

2F.E. Dzerzhinsky was approved as People's Commissar of Internal Affairs on March 30, 1919.